Quinnipiac is a team with a story to tell

South Carolina women’s basketball forward A’ja Wilson has a rule, probably a pretty good one.

“You never want to play a team with a story,” she said.

Louisville’s men’s team came out on the wrong side of that last weekend, losing to a Michigan squad that hasn’t lost since its plane rolled off the tarmac. Wilson’s Gamecocks have to try to play the role of old guard, holding off the tournament upstart Saturday in an NCAA Sweet 16 game in Stockton Calif.

Not that everyone’s got down the spelling of “Quinnipiac.”

“I know they’re the Bobcats,” Wilson said. “I kind of know how to spell it, not really. I thought it was with an ‘e’ but it’s not. They’re a really good team, the Cinderella team, so called, in our bracket. We really can’t sleep on them, because we watched the Miami game, and the way that they came back, just the way that they played, it was great.”

Her squad gets the story of the tournament, a team with the lowest remaining seed (12, Oregon is the next lowest at 10) and a program history as quaint as they come.

The team went Division I in 1998-99. Head coach Tricia Fabbri has been there since three seasons before that. She’s overseen a start in the Northeast conference, and the transition to the MAAC after the program’s first NCAA trip in 2013.

Her program built with ups and down, finally breaking through with a 30-3 record that 2013 season and then 31-4 in 2014-15. This season wasn’t quite at that level of dominance, but the Bobcats, led by the coach’s daughter, Carly Fabbri, held off a good Rider team for the conference title and made history with the first two NCAA tournament wins in program history.

Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley looked at one particular skill they bring to the table.

“You know they can shoot it from outside, the 3,” Staley said. “We’ve got to make them 2 us. We’ve got to make them put the ball on the floor. We’ve got to stay in between them and the basket. We’ve got to rebound the basketball.”

That shooting prowess was on particular display against Miami, when Quinnipiac connected on 15-of-26 3s.

This is the round where South Carolina tripped up last season, granted to a solid Syracuse team instead of to a tournament darling. Staley said if this was on a one-game turnaround, facing a team on this kind of run would be trickier, but with the longer game, the coaches should have everything covered.

“I think it’s a great story, what they’ve been able to accomplish,” Staley said. “So we’re well ahead and we’re in front of the stories.

“So nothing’s really going to catch us off guard.”

This story was originally published March 23, 2017 at 5:29 PM with the headline "Quinnipiac is a team with a story to tell."